If you are like me, a sci-fi geek with a television in the 20th century, you probably also suffer from NIIS: Nothing Is Impossible Syndrome. It’s not our fault, it it the hoard of incredible science fiction shows that had amazing leaders that couldn’t lose. Whether it was Jack O’niel and SG-1 or Spiderman and his amazing friends, we were flooded with leaders and teams who were truly heroes. None of this flawed, troubled hero crap of the 21st century. While television of yesteryear was full of great leaders, there was no greater leader than Captain Jean-Luc Picard and his leadership of the crew of the NCC-1701-D Enterprise.

Picard had it all (except for hair): strength, charisma, intelligence, a British accent. No matter what predicament he was put in, he always knew how to act, what decisions to make, and what to say that would motivate his crew to rise above any dilemma.

In short: Captain Picard knew how to get shit done and live an awesome life.

He gave me such a great role model in my early years. He made me realize that you can always do more, act faster, and be better than you think you can… You just need an inspirational speech and a bald headed smirk.

So without further ado, I bring you Jean-Luc Picard’s six steps to living life to the fullest… Make it so!

1. Know no limits

Picard: Data, find a way to defeat that shield.
Data: That may be impossible, sir.
Picard: Data, things are only impossible until they’re not.

Picard was never afraid to push his limits, the ships limits, or the limits of his crew. He constantly raised the bar because he knew his crew could manage. You should do the same with your life.

For the longest time, I never thought I would be a runner. Why? I tried it and it was hard. Half a mile sucked the life out of me. A mile was impossible. So I thought running would never be for me… But one day I decided to suck it up, and start running. 100′s of miles later, I’m now training for a half marathon, which will lead to a full marathon, which will lead to something else. If I never pushed my limits, I would still be 250 and out of breath when I climb a flight of stairs.

Picard would never approve of that.

2. Do it better and faster, your life depends on it

“I think it’s time to try some unsafe velocities.”

When Geordi needed 10 minutes to repair a warp conduit, Picard gave him 5. Picard knew Geordi could do it if he pushed himself.

Just like you need to believe there is nothing you can’t do, you also need to realize that you can always improve on the things you can already do.

Take some time to measure your abilities and constantly try to break your old records. Everyday might not be a new personal best, but why not use the bar you set for yourself as motivation for the next day. How many times can you keep raising the bar? And while your life may not really depend on doing things better and faster, why not pretend that it does and crush it every day.

Next time you feel like doing something half assed or not at all, just think of an upset Jean-Luc.

Image courtesy of picardfacepalm.com

3. Don’t waste time being someone you’re not

“If we’re going to be damned, let’s be damned for what we really are.”

One of the biggest problems people have with making progress in life is that they are to busy living up to other people’s standards to move forward in their own life. You can spend all of your time trying to accomplish the goals and live up to the expectation of others. It’s only later that you realize you never got anything done for yourself. If you pretend to be someone you’re not or bend to the will of others, you will always hit a wall.

Figure out what you really want to get done, and do it the way you want it to be done. If you are true to yourself and believe in what you are doing, you will keep doing incredible things.

4. Act now

Seize the time… Live now. Make now always the most precious time. Now will never come again.

Picard knew what his mission was: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before. He knew he couldn’t sit around to do that. He had to get out there and do it (though, ironically he did do a lot of sitting once he got out there).

When you have an urge to start a new project or a new subject grabs your attention, do something about it. Try that new exercise. Read that new book. Learn that new programming language. It’s our mission as humans to better ourselves, and you can only do that by action. No more “tomorrow” or “maybe someday” when you can do it right now.

Lay in a course and engage.

5. Live desperately

Unnamed Officer (Fencing with Picard): Interesting move. What technique was that?Jean-Luc Picard: The technique of a desperate man.

We live in an awesome world full of hope and promise. The problem with living a good and prosperous life is we sometimes get lethargic and forget what we are capable of. When Picard and his crew were put under pressure – life or death pressure – they pulled out some spectacular miracles (failure would have hurt the ratings).

When was the last time you really lived desperately? It’s always good to think about what your actions would be if you truly had to live like your life depended on it.

Try challenging yourself:

Run as if you were being chased by zombies (It might happen!)

Climb a wall and pull off some parkour skills like it’s the only way to save yourself from an crazed pack of wolves.

Work on a passion project as if your entire career depended on it

Sometimes it takes something seemingly bad to allow you to rise to your full potential. Instead of waiting for that to happen, take some risks and see if you can force it to happen.

6. Remember what’s important in life

In life, we often get tunnel-vision on whatever we are doing at the moment. When I’m in the middle of a big work project, I often forget about my fitness and neglect my precious family time. When I’m focused on fitness, I often spend more time working out and browsing fitness blogs that working on passion projects or taking time to just rest. When your the captain of the flagship of the federation, it’s easy to get caught up in saving the human race, but remember that Picard’s final regret in the series was that he didn’t spend enough time with his friends… his family.

When was the last time you called your mom/dad/brother/sister/son/daughter/heterosexual-life-mate and told them you loved them? When was the last time you went and had lunch with a good friend? Don’t ignore the things that make you happiest deep down in your soul. You may forget from time to time, but remind yourself to do these things daily, weekly, monthly… whenever you feel yourself getting disconnected. These personal relationships are what living is all about, so get living!

Also, remember to smile!

Remember to smile!

Captain’s Log: Supplemental

I’ll finish up with some awesome Picard pictures and some other great Picard quotes (not at all related to the pictures)

What we leave behind is not as important as how we have lived

Captain Jean-Luc Picard: The economics of the future is somewhat different. You see, money doesn’t exist in the 24th century.Lily Sloane: No money? You mean, you don’t get paid?Captain Jean-Luc Picard: We work to better ourselves.

Image courtesy of WrongTees

Doctor Beverly Crusher: Personally, I think you just enjoy waking everybody up in the middle of the night.Capt. Picard: Actually, I really like running around the ship in my bare feet.

Capt. Picard: Wishing for a thing does not make it so.

Capt. Picard: Don’t try so hard to be human. Just be yourself.

What is your favorite life lesson you leaned from Star Trek: TNG?What is your favorite Picard moment?Is it really possible to repair a warp conduit in 5 minutes?

In case you didn’t know, I am a big fan of the website Nerd Fitness. Well, last week, Steve Kamb, the man behind Nerd Fitness, and Vic Magary released a new workout/diet plan ebook called the Rebel Strength Guide. Since I have recently lost 50 pounds and I now fall in the category of “skinny fat” (not really fat, but not toned and just sort of dumpy looking), the timing of this book aimed at getting you lean, strong, and cut, could not have been better.

I don’t really care if I win the contest, but I am going to give it hell and fight my way to the top of the contenders. I have been fat and mopey for too long, and I now feel like I have the opportunity to be the guy I never thought I could be. The guy mowing his lawn without a shirt on. The confident guy at the party. The husband who can still get a second glance from his wife while getting ready for work.

The time is now.

So I plan on using this blog as a place to keep my status updates and measurements.

Initial Measurements:

Here is my baseline.

Height: 6′ 2″

Weight – 193 lbs

Body Fat %: Need to measure (will do Wed.)

Arms: 12″

Chest: 40.5 “

Waist: 39.25 ” (I wear a size 34 pant, so I’m not sure I did this right)

Thigh: 20″

And the before picture montage. As you can see. I still have a ways to go to get to where I need to be.

6 weeks to a better me:

This contest is a also being run in conjunction with the Nerd Fitness 6 week challenge, in which you set 4-5 goals and use the Nerd Fitness message boards to keep yourself accountable. Here are my fitness and nutrition goals:

So here we go!

This week, I cover one of my favorite topics: World of Warcraft. Oh how I love me some WoW! I could play World of Warcraft for hours. But what doesn’t love me playing WoW for hours on end – is my cholesterol. Talk about a cataclysm. It is incredible how much idle time this game has. There are so many minutes in the game in which I’m sitting and waiting for a Zeppelin, flying from the top of the continent to the bottom, or waiting for the stupid mage to drink some water. While this idle time is mostly unavoidable, that time doesn’t have to go to waste…

Use that previously wasted time level up your fitness!

I took note of some of the most common periods of unaviodable inactivity in the game and I created the World of Warcraft Workout Plan to fill up the in-game down-time with real-life up-time.

WoW Workout Plan Exercise 1: The Zeppelin Burn

Did you know that most of the Zeppelins, Boats, and Blimps you use to travel between continents are on a 4 minute cycle? They take a minute to get from one place to another, and they stay at each place for a minute. This means that you can spend anywhere from 1 minute if your lucky, up to 5 minutes waiting and traveling. Well guess what: Time is money, friend.

Use this time to do a quick bodyweight circuit and give aimed at giving you +5 to strength.

*Since you need to be at the keyboard to get on the boat when it arrives, this circuit only has exercises that keep you near the computer.

This circuit works you legs, arms, abs, and chest. Doing this a couple of times a night and will definitely get your muscles burning.

WoW Workout Plan Exercise 2: Epic Flight

The flight paths in WoW take up a lot of time – mostly with you just sitting and staring at a gryphon’s butt. The average travel time in World of Warcraft is 2 minutes 24 seconds. Chain a few flights together, you could be flying for 10 or more minutes. Don’t waste that time slouched in front of the screen…

Use it to DPS your body fat % with a high intensity cardio circuit.

*Since you don’t have to be right at the computer for this, step away from the computer, give yourself plenty of room to move, and get ready to work up a sweat.

30 seconds of walking in place

30 seconds of running in place.

1 minute of jumping jacks (do power jacks if you want to step it up a notch)

This curcuit takes anywhere from 3 and a half to 4 minutes, but repeat the circuit as many times as you can while your character is flying. Every round should burn up to 50 calories, so if you fly four times during a night of play, and complete at least one circuit every flight – you have just burned 200+ calories! That’s definitely enough to work off that handful of funyons you downed while taking out the Lich King.

WoW Workout Plan Quick Hits

Photo courtesy of brianjmatis on Flickr

Scanning the auction house? Activate Aspect of the Cheetah and go do some sprints up and down your street.

Waiting for a mob to re-spawn? Send your muscles a lesser healing wave by doing some light yoga stretches.

Waiting for a ready check? Cast Tranquility on yourself by closing your eyes and take a few deep breaths.

I’ll discuss more ways you can turn you love for WoW into a way to get fit in future episodes. But don’t let that stop you from getting creative, and coming up with a workout plan of your own. There is so much more idle time in the game that are perfect to get in some much needed physical activity. You can mix and match what you do and when you do it.

Just be aware of the time you spend in-game doing nothing — and try to change that.

You will be amazed how many calories you can burn or how many pushups you can do without giving up any play time at all.

I’d like to hear your results of following this plan. I’d also like to know what other ways you stay fit while playing WoW. Post a comment here or hit me up on twitter, @geekintoshape.

I have come across about 7 bajillion posts relating fitness to movies lately – well, more like 5 - but I have been thoroughly enjoying how each person relates the movie plot and morals to real life fitness issues.

I wanna join in!

Since everyone else is doing this, I thought I would join the fun and relate movies I like to fitness — QUICK-FIRE STYLE!

So here are 9 fitness morals I have learned from movies.

Forrest Gump - Running back and forth across the country will surely make you lose a few pounds. That’s all I have to say about that.

The Wizard of Oz – You may wake up one day, and realize you’re in a strange world of fatty fatness, having left your past, fit self behind. But at some point, you have to leave the lollipop kin — and the soda-pop-kin, and the Krystal-burger-kin — behind to follow the yellow brick road to get back home – the healthy place where you belong. You’ll likely pick up some new fiends on the way and run into a wicked witch or two, but keep going down the path. Just stay away from those damn poppy fields.

WALL·E – A lot of people have plenty of support, but every so often, you may be the left alone as the only one in your fitness world, left to fend for yourself. But keep at it, day after day, as if it were the most important thing. You never know, one day you might need to impress some hot robot chick or even shape up an entire space station of morbidly obese people.

Pulp Fiction – Like this movie, your fitness routine might seem all over the place. A jumbled set loosely related exercises. Chest here. Quads there. Throw in a dash of running. How does it all tie together? Who cares! This movie was freaking awesome. So I guess all I’m saying is: DON’T DO COKE!

Goodfellas – You may start off as some no-name fitness newb, but set your goals high. Once you set your goals, do whatever it takes to meet them, even if that means murdering [your muscles]. I don’t remember how this movie ended, but I think it ended with you being in great shape and living happily ever after.

Rudy - Do I even have to say it?

Groundhog Day – When it comes to trying to lose weight, it may seem like everyday is the same day: wake up, exercise, work, cook, eat, clean, exercise, sleep. Don’t get stuck in a rut. Add variety. When you get bored of the norm, do something different. Go play a game of basketball, switch from the treadmill to the track, try to save a homeless man… you know.

This Is Spinal Tap – So many here:
1. Don’t forget to document the day to day of your fitness routine.
2. Every once and a while, you might spontaneously combust, but you can always start again.
3. Don’t stuff the front of your pants.
4. Sometimes, you might get trapped in an big plastic pod of no progress. Just keep on going and you’ll eventually bust on through.
5. Never forget to crank it up to 11.

Hustle and Flow – Move faster and drink a lot of water (which will make you pee, hence the flow)

You’re Welcome!

I know these last 9 morals will help you move forward in your fitness journey.

Ok, probably not.

But hopefully it at least made you crack a smile. Once again I wanted to thank the bloggers I mentioned above who had real posts that made me think differently about some of my favorite movies and boosted my healthy mindset.

Do you have any movies that have taught you something new about fitness? Post a comment!

Hello, my name is George, and I am a nerd. As you might have already guessed, I look like I belong in a gym. I fit right in. Me and muscles over there… tight. That bar thingie with the circles on it, got it under control. The girl with the tight booty shorts, oh yeah, she was looking at me doing my hip thrusts. Oh I forgot, I’m a liar.

I have always kept my distance from gyms in the past, but in my grand plan of being a sexy bitch, I needed to step up my workouts. So, I recently signed up for a two week trial to a gym, and let me tell you, gyms are hard to walk into as an overweight semi-geek type. I never had an issue in high school with the whole geek vs. jock shenanigans, but the whole concept of a gym reminds me of that stereotypical divide. Muscle bound dudes. Super fit aerobics instructors. People with tans. I am not a shy person by most standards, but I was definitely a little intimidated my first time stepping through the gym doors. I can see how a lot of people have bad gym anxiety.

However, a gym provides so much benefit, so sometimes we have to just suck it up. And that is exactly what I did, and so far it has worked out great.

So, since I have recently been through the process of getting into gym mode, I thought I would share some tips that helped me ease the transition from couch and office chair to step class and weight bench, both mentally and physically.

Step 1: Get your mind right

You can’t begin to take advantage of the gym until you get over (or at least bury deep inside) any gym anxiety you may have. Here are some small things that helped me:

Realize that people in the gym look the way they do because they go to the gym. A good number of the people that go to the gym are already in a maintenance mode, and are exercising at a rate in accordance with their fitness level. This makes it hard Joe McFlabbybelly, who is 30+ pounds away from his goals and gets winded from pouring milk into his Lucky Charms, to feel at home in a gym.

You have to start somewhere.

Just realize that you are on the right path. Sooner than you think, you are going to being that guy/gal you see throwing up dumbbells that are bigger than your head. Just stick with it.

Nerd out on research and bring the knowledge! Would you start a new software project written in a new programming language without going through the quick-start guide, multiple tutorials, and a few screencasts? Would you dive right into a raid without looking at boss abilities, discussing strategy, and doing a ready check? Sure, if you expect to wipe. The correct answer is: No!

One thing that I think all of us geeks have in common is our insatiable curiosity and our ability to gather as much knowledge as possible to be prepared for whatever it is we are obsessing over at the moment. The same applies to the gym. Make goals and research how to meet those goals. Come to the gym prepared. Know what classes you want to take, what workouts you are going to do, and come with a purpose.

Don’t cause yourself to crash and burn just because you don’t know what to expect.

Step 2: Equip the right gear

Since I don’t know what level of geek you are, I will not assume that you know not to wear your storm trooper outfit to the gym. So nostorm trooper outfits. But don’t let that prevent you from showing your geeky side while whipping your ass into shape.

Embrace your geekiness in the gym! Don’t be afraid or ashamed to stick out from the crowd. While most people at the gym are wearing their MMA Tapout shirts or skin tight Under Armor gear, I proudly wear my Nerds 2^2 Ever shirt to the gym. I embrace my horn-rimmed glasses that fog up when I get sweaty. I enjoy stripping down to my whitey-tighties in the locker room… Ok, not that last one. But seriously, don’t be afraid to let your geek flag fly in the gym, our t-shirts are way funnier than their t-shirts, and chicks dig funny t-shirts.

Make gym time your geek news time with podcasts. I assume, like me, you have blogs you read to keep up on the latest tech trends or the latest news to your favorite game(s). Well, lucky for you, someone probably produces a podcast that hits all of the major tech, gaming, political, woodworking, or Local Causal and Markov Blanket Induction for Causal Discovery and Feature Selection for Classification news your heart desires. The last one might be hard to find, but the others are definitely covered! So load up your MP3 player of choice with some great news podcasts and make gym time learning time as well.

Step 3: Crawl, Walk, Run

When going to the gym for the first time in a while (or ever), you are bound to get sore. But never use that as an excuse to stop going to the gym. Start somewhat easy (don’t be a wuss, though) and plan on being sore the first few times back. If you aren’t sore, you’re probably taking it too easy and need to step it up (remember when I called you a wuss about a sentence ago?).

The burn says its working. Plan for the inevitable muscle soreness that will follow your first few workouts. Don’t plan any major physical activities the first few days after your first trip to the gym. My first day at the gym resulted in 3 days of pretty bad muscle soreness. Unfortunately, not much can be done for muscle soreness. The best thing that helped me was going for long walks to keep my muscles warm and light stretching. Take the pain lightly and don’t let it dissuade you from going back to the gym. While it sucks, it means that your body healing itself to prepare you better for the next time. After a few weeks, your muscles won’t be as sore after each workout, so you can hit the gym hard after that. You can even treat the pain as an immediate result from your workouts… you may not see the results right away, but you can sure as hell feel them.

Step 4: Give me a ‘C’! Give me an ‘O’! Give me a ‘NSISTENCY’!

(I ran out of header room)

Grind out reputation with your gym’s faction. Make sure you take advantage of the gym. Take extra time to get to know the gym common folk. Make sure you know where to find a good mead (protein shake). Know how to find your (aerobics) class trainer. Know how to get to the the local smith (machine) to help craft your armor (muscles). Use the chat channels (your mouth) to make new friends (friends). Do your gym dailies and grind your way from Neutral to Friendly and beyond. Keep at it, the rewards are well worth the daily grind.

Step 5: Have Fun!

The end goal is to get fit, but you have to have fun doing it. Treat the gym as a fun place to get fit and meet new people who are trying to (or already have) achieve the same goals. If you genuinely don’t like it, stop going… Remember that a gym is just one of many methods to reach your goals.

Hopefully these thoughts and tips might ease your transition into the gym… it did mine.

There are some things people consistently track in life, such as bank transactions, hours worked against tasks for work, or the number of jelly bellys my daughter has put up her nose. Why do we do this? Easy… So we can have knowledge and control over these things:

So I know how much money I have and where my money is going.

So I know how long a work task has taken in the past so I can estimate and schedule better in the future.

So I can know whether my daughter still has jelly bellies in her nose.

The ability to track these things give us the knowledge to set our limits for the coming days, weeks, months, or years. It also gives us the insight into what has helped and hurt us in the past. This knowledge is what is needed to stay in control of the critical things that define how we live and work.

Tracking your fitness and nutrition is no different. In fact, it is probably more important that the examples above. The ability for us to know our progress and see our current status gives us the power to control our body and meet our goals. I want to show some examples from my personal experience to help bring my point home.

Tracking Body Weight

Roller coaster! Of weight... Say What!? Roller coaster! Hoo Hoo Hoo!

Look at my body tracking chart. You can clearly see the a trend: The time periods I consistently tracked my weight (look for the clusters of dots), I lost weight. The time periods that I took a break from tracking my weight, I gained weight. I found out, that during the time periods in which I went more than a week without recording my weight, I gained an average of 1.5 pounds. During the time periods that I consistently tracked my weight, I lost about 2.5 pounds. Even during the times that I tracked when I wasn’t dieting or I wasn’t consistently exercising, I could easily see if I was gaining weight. I knew I needed to to make adjustments in my diet that week or step up the workouts. The simple knowledge of what was going on helped me make smarter decisions.

Tracking Nutrition

Photo courtesy of Clint M Chilcott

The same type of knowledge applies to tracking what you eat. One of my friends was having a hard time losing weight. They exercised consistently, around 5 times a week for 30+ minutes a session, but they were stuck at being a little heavier than they should be. They had plateaued. One day I suggested they start tracking what they ate during the day, and the results were surprising to them. They were unknowingly taking in ~2500 calories each day, which is not bad in itself given the amount of exercising they were doing, but most of their calories were from fat and carbs. They thought they ate somewhat healthy… at least not unhealthy… But when they actually paid attention to what they were eating, they realized they needed to change. They knew which of their favorite foods was hurting them, and which foods were helping them. Once they modified their eating habits, they crushed through the plateau and was back on their way to their goal.

Motivation

I am, admittedly, not very consistent in my fitness endeavors. I believe this to be true for most people as well. We all have great intentions and hit the ground running, and somehow fizzle into old, bad habits. I don’t have any good solutions for this problem, but the one thing I strongly recommend is to keep on tracking. Who cares if you didn’t work out for a week and slipped on your diet. Log your weight. Log your calories. Continue to track your weight and your food intake no matter what. This way, when you start slipping, you recognize it much quicker. You are much less likely to stray too far from the course. You are constantly aware of your current status, your progress towards your goals, your weak spots in your fitness routine, and most importantly, your triumphs. Knowing these things will continue to motivate you to be better, because, as Sir Francis Bacon once said, knowledge is power. Mmmmm. Bacon. No wait, bacon would put me over my calorie limit for the day… See. Knowledge.

Where To Go From Here

So how do you start tracking your weight and nutrition. Well it’s as easy as a pen and paper. … Ha! Did I just say to use a pen and paper! Don’t be crazy! What is this, the 90s? Ha!

There are many other ways to do this in the modern world. I’ll list a few:

I personally suggest Gyminee. I have used this one for a while now and absolutely love it. But it doesn’t really matter which one you choose to use, as long as you consistently use it. Most of these services offer a mobile option as well so you can log what your eating in real time (wives and girlfriends love it when you ignore them for your iPhone… trust me). So what are you waiting for? Get started!